our Union Station studio

We’ve been lucky enough to work out of a beautiful office in Denver’s Union Station for over 10 years now. It’s a real pleasure to come to work every day in a building that is so central to Denver’s history and vitality. We’ve especially enjoyed the green features that were common building practice when this station was built, like tall windows to let in tons of natural light and warmth in the winter, and the natural passive ventilation that helps cool the building in the summer. We’ll talk more about this in our next post.

[ Click on images below for full-size slideshow ]

As you may know, there’s a lot of construction going on all around Union Station right now. The area behind the station, shown in the first picture below, is transforming from a small light rail/train station, into a much larger and complex transportation hub for the entire metro area, weaving together local, regional, and express bus lines, with light rail and passenger rail including a train to DIA. In addition, there will be two new wing buildings on ether side of Union Station along with a redesigned public space, all of which fills the area that was once surface level parking.

The main building of Union Station itself will also start to transform later this spring. The majority of it turning into a boutique hotel on the second and third floors with restaurants and retail on the ground floor. The main hall will continue to be public space serving the commuters. See the Denver Post article about the decision here. While this seems like a good idea for keeping this space well maintained and very active, it means that we’ll be forced to change our office location after all these years. There’s no firm plans on our new location yet, but as architects, we look forward to the opportunity to design a new space to house our studio and prepare for the future. Pictures of our current office are below.